Kokila Teacher

In keeping with the Three Times themes, I had intially reworked this post so it was "stand alone" but it took away from the spirit of it. So my night's labours unrewarded, back to the linear and the tale as it was.  Also the tale is perhaps more "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter" with today's post being Autumn. I also feel a deconstruction of Kokila as a representation of Indian womanhood coming on, but I shall desist!

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I had once known a girl called Kokila but it appeared that fate had so arranged that I would never meet her again.

In 1952, my sister was living in Chidambaram. I had gone there on a casual visit and one evening we went to the temple. It took me a few minutes to recognise her but there was Koki, unchanged and as pretty as before. My sister, who too hadn’t met her in many years, hugged her and as is wont with old friends they fell in step and exchanged the details of their life over their years. Then she turned to me and spoke in an unchanged manner. I coloured and stammered, all too conscious of our past.

It so happened that she was working as a primary school teacher and she invited us to her rooms which were close by. Coffee was served and after some chit-chat, my sister ever the diplomat, quietly slipped out to talk to the other tenants. Koki and I were alone in the room.

"When I heard you had run away from home, I was devastated. I felt I was responsible for it. Why did you do it?"

"Raghu you were not responsible. When I met you....that meeting brought a change in me. I wanted to be with you, I had imaginary conversations with you, I felt you were mine for ever. My husband on the other hand rarely visited, he was a stranger. I thought of my future with him as an indifferent wife. Thousands of such indifferent wives exist, they rear children and grand children, some have affairs. But the idea revolted me and perhaps my nascent education emboldened me. My parents, loving though they were, were too bound by social mores and injunctions; they could not accept my refusal of my husband. I was in great turmoil and very lonely. Yet strangely you never came in my thoughts. It was your sister and the solace offered by her friendship that I deeply missed. Events then overtook me and I had no choice but to leave home”.

"Did you not think of the scandal and the pain to your parents?"

It turned out that Kokila - though regretful of the pain to her parents - was unbothered by the scandal. Initially she had lost contact with her parents but relations had been re-established. Her father was now retired and her parents lived at Srirangam. Their relatives and friends lived close by, she visited when she could. In spite of the attendant scandal, her fleeing home had eventually been uneventful. Ruefully she added, "Perhaps Lord Balaji alone was on my side." She had caught the bazaar (passenger) train in the early hours of the morning for Mayavaram. At Mayavaram she went immediately to the Perumal temple to take the lord's blessings for her new life. After a dip in the temple's tank, she had entered the temple. There she met an elderly Ayyangar couple. She herself being an Ayyangar, they had taken her into their care. There had of course been trouble when she told them the real cause of her fleeing but the Mami had finally placated her husband and so she had stayed. The Ayyangar was a retired headmaster and it was through him that her career as a school teacher had started.

"So Raghu, I stand before you as an honourable woman with my head high. I am now Kokila teacher to many parents and children. My life is peaceful."

I was amazed at her achievements and her life. I then asked about her husband. He it appeared had faded from her life; it was as if he had never existed.

As before, we parted. Mischievously I asked, “Do you still love me?” She smiled as if to say, “Don’t be silly”. It was her turn to say no and her refusal had the great elegance mine never had. My sister then returned and we made our farewells and in parting, I slipped my address in her hand.

I did not receive a single letter from her.

Pic source here.